[Hamza01]

I believe and it's my opinion, that one day, Earth based telescopes will actually be able to see some surface detail of planets orbiting other stars.

Appreciate your post. I too hope to actually "see" the surface of an extra-solar planet. Sadly, it seems from the article that the size of lens we'd need to actually pull this off would be about the size of Australia. And if we were able to "see" it, it would be history.

The depressing part of all this is-- when you realize the distances involved-- you come to the difficult conclusion that we are barely out of the muck.

[Brett66]

The Keck and European Southern Observatory telescopes should have the power to directly image some of the larger exo-planets when they become fully operational.(2003-2005) If we can get a moon-base optical interferometer set up with a baseline the diameter of the moon, we'll be able to get Voyager quality pictures of exo-planets out to 20-30 light years. We could get Mariner-quality pics of exo-planets out to 30-70 light years from Earth.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Sadly, it seems from the article that the size of lens we'd need to actually pull this off would be about the size of Australia.

Oh, with the current technology, I completely agree. However, I still believe that in the future, maybe in the next 50 to 100 years, we will be able to develop new optical instruments that will be able to see some planetary details on planets orbiting stars that are relatively close to our solar system.

If you just think of the stunning advances in optical astronomy just since Galileo's day, I think it will be entirely possible with new advances and a whole new breed of telescope technology. Galileo would not believe the advances that have been developed in just a matter of several hundred years.